Comic artist with a darker side who poked fun at lords, spivs and matrons and achieved enduring fame with his St Trinian’s schoolgirls

Ronald Searle was an indefatigable observer and interpreter, an old-fashioned
artist who believed that it was his job to record the world in line. For 65
years he drew all the time, producing a massive dossier of evidence of how
people endured, interacted, played and schemed during an often inhospitable
century. His cats, dogs, giant flies and other fauna were equally
characterful.

“For me,” he wrote, “to start the day with a sense of excitement, wondering
where my pen will lead me this time, is the only justification for remaining
on this Earth,” and his assignments varied from “the filming